Now Comes the Night
by imagine131
Summary: An Arizona-based one-shot from when her brother died. I don't own any of this. A/U, dramatic, sad, inspiring, etc.


**Okay, so this idea was given to me by Sam. Thank you!**

**The song used for the title (Now Comes the Night, by Rob Thomas) holds particular meaning to me because in 8th grade when we had to write an essay about someone we knew who died, I used the song lyrics as an opener and a closer, and I also used it in a video montage for the book 'Night' by Ellie Wiesel. I'm not sure if I spelled that right....Anyways, it's a very beautiful, powerful song and I suggest you listen to it.**

**One last thing: this is A/U because we don't know much about Arizona, but this is how I picture her life pre-Seattle to being.**

**Enjoy!**

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I loved being around little kids. They were so little and cute and funny and completely innocent to the ways of life. Very few of the children seated in front of me understood how hard life could really be, how much pain and suffering it could cause. To be so ignorant was a gift that I wished I had.

It was nearing the end of the day, a Friday actually. The summer sun was shining from the windows that covered the side wall, the warmth from which made the sitting in the classroom nearly unbearable. My third-graders were growing antsy, fidgeting in their seats. I could understand this, seeing as I felt the same way, but that didn't exactly make my job any easier. I could tell that no one was paying any attention to the lesson on the board, but were staring open-mouthed at the TV screen behind me which read the time. I needed one person I could yell at to make them all snap back to reality.

As if God himself could hear my thoughts, one of the 'troublemaker' kids in the back of the room threw a pencil at another boy. I tried to hide my smile as I slowly approached him. None of the kids noticed that I had moved or even that I had stopped talking.

"Hey, Jacob?" I said sweetly, coming to a halt beside the boy's desk. He jumped, realizing I was there, and turned to look at me with wide eyes.

"Yes, Ms. Robbins?" he asked innocently.

"Why don't you go pick up your pencil?" I suggested. Jacob gulped. By now ever kid in the classroom was turned towards us, the scent of trouble having awoken them from their daydreams. Slowly Jacob pushed back his chair and walked the few desks up to where his pencil was laying on the floor. "Good. Now maybe you should come and sit up front."

Jacob gathered up his things without hesitation and hastened to an empty seat in the front row. In his hurry to obey my command, he tripped over a book someone had left on the ground. I helped him up as the other kids laughed. One quick look from me and they were silent. I'm not an especially mean teacher; in fact, I'm one of the nicest. But these kids have seen me angry once before and it was not something they wanted to see again.

Before I could say anything or do anything about the book that lay forgotten in the middle of the aisle, there was a knock on the door. Everyone in the room fell silent. Their heads turned from the door to me in unison. If I hadn't been able to see who it was who was standing on the other side of the door, I might have laughed. A quick look at the TV clock in the front of the room told me that there were only three minutes of class left. I wondered what was so important that it couldn't wait a few minutes.

"You guys can pack up your stuff," I instructed the children, who wasted no time in stashing books and folders into their backpacks. Under cover of the chaos I had just created, I slipped out the door.

"Hi," I greeted uneasily. The fact that my mother was standing at the door to my classroom just a few minutes before the weekend began could not be a good thing. I tried to swallow down the feeling of fright that was leaving an awful taste in my mouth, but all I managed to do was to make my stomach feel sick.

"Hey, can you talk now?" Mom responded. I hesitated. In truth, I probably should have gone back inside and waited with the children until the bell rang. But there was something about Mom's voice and the way she looked.

"Sure. What's up?" I asked, hoping that I was being paranoid about something being wrong.

I wasn't.

"I received a visit today…from some men from the army…." Mom's voice broke and she started crying. I immediately knew why she was so upset about a visit from a few army men.

My brother had joined the army months ago and was off fighting in some distant country. Or so he had been. A visit from some men in uniform while a family member was off fighting was not usually a good thing. I waited for Mom's confirmation before I freaked out though. Mom nodded, seemingly too overcome with emotion to speak. Eyes and mouth wide open, I hugged my devastated mother. It only took a few seconds for hot tears to dampen the shoulder of her tee-shirt.

I spent a full minute trying to pull myself together before re-entering the classroom. My mother did the same. When we were as tear-free as we could be, I pushed open the door, ignoring the scampering that meant that the kids were rushing back to their seats before they were caught. The bell rang a few seconds later, leaving me with no opportunity to explain. I was grateful for that.

"Have a nice weekend; I'll see you all next week!" I called brightly as the children filed out the door, pushing and shoving in an effort to get out and enjoy their break from school. When the last straggler was finally swallowed by the sea of students beyond my classroom door, I let the smile drop from my face. I didn't cry again like I expected to.

Mom offered to drive me home, but I didn't want to leave my car in the school parking lot all weekend. So I drove to my apartment alone, radio playing so loudly I could barely hear my own thoughts. I suppose that's a good thing though. I managed to keep from falling apart while I packed a bag for the weekend. It was decided that my family shouldn't be alone at a time like this and everyone was staying at my parent's ranch for the weekend. The funeral was on Monday at the military base.

I was proud of myself when I made it through an entire conversation with one of the office secretaries without my voice breaking. I called out for Monday and Tuesday of next week, but decided that I would go back to work on Wednesday. The secretary argued that that was too soon and that I should give myself some time to cope. I disagreed.

I guess I knew for a while that this could happen. Since the day my brother had called with the news that he'd enlisted. But now that it had actually happened, it sent such a powerful wave of shock throughout my body. I couldn't believe that my big brother had died….

With that realization, I collapsed onto my bed, salty tears falling quickly and heavily. I didn't even try to stop them; I just let them all out. I'm not sure how long I laid there, and I'm not sure I really care how long I laid there. All I know is that by the time my body stopped shaking and my sobs had become dry chokes that were lessening in intensity with every passing second, it was already dark outside.

At my family's ranch, Dad had set up a bonfire in the backyard. Beers were passed around wordlessly as aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, and sisters stared solemnly at the dancing flames. I dropped my bag on the ground a few yards from the gathering. No one seemed to have noticed my arrival, or if they did, they didn't acknowledge it. Finally my dad looked up at me. There were bags under his eyes which were illuminated by the glow of the fire.

"Zona," he said in a voice so unlike my dad's. It was weak, frail, pained. I smiled at the pet name. He'd been calling me 'Zona' for as long as I could remember. I absolutely hated it and the only one allowed to call me by that nickname was Dad. He wrapped his strong arms around me, more tightly than I think he meant to. It seemed as if he were hanging on to me for support.

We spent a good two or three hours around the fire that night, but it didn't feel that long to me. Nothing affected me that night; not the dreary conversations, not the depressed silence, not even the bitter cold breeze that lifted my hair from my shoulders. I remained numb throughout the entire night.

"Why?" my younger cousin Beth asked eventually. It was a thought that had passed through all our minds at one point or another that night, but no one but the innocent child could bring themselves to ask it out loud. She was sitting next to me and I wrapped one arm around her comfortingly.

"They say that there weren't enough doctors to tend to all of the wounded soldiers," my father explained bitterly. Silence fell heavily around the campfire once again.

That weekend was the slowest I'd ever experienced in my life.

When Monday morning came, the house was suddenly full of life. People were hurrying between bedrooms and bathrooms, trying to get ready in time for the funeral. I was one of the first adults ready, seeing as I didn't have any children to dress, so I waiting in the living room with my cousins and siblings. My two youngest cousins, around 7 and 8 years of age, were playing catch with a rolled-up pair of socks. No one had the energy to yell at them, not even when they knocked over a lamp while trying to make Derek Jeter-style catches.

The airplane hangar was hot and uncomfortable. As soon as I entered it, I could feel the heavy mood of the people gathered inside pull me down a little further, as if I wasn't feeling down enough. The complete numbness I had experienced at the campfire Friday night never left me, not even as I sat in the cool metal folding chair and half-listened to the speech being made. We were so far back that all I could really hear was an echo of the man's voice anyway.

When they opened the plane and began to unload it, that's when I began to pay attention. I was absolutely shocked by the number of coffins they brought off the plane. The sight brought tears to my previously unemotional eyes. _And this was all because there weren't enough doctors?_ I found myself thinking.

I believe that it was that moment that I decided to resign from my teaching position and go to medical school. Not as a military doctor though; although I knew it was right, I was simply not brave enough to do it. I was not as brave as my brother was. Pediatrics was the only real option for me, since I loved kids so much. That was why I had decided to teach third grade in the first place, when I could have been making much more money doing anything else.

So set in my new goal was I that I did not even pay attention to the rest of the ceremony. I found myself thinking, dreaming, of the difference I would make. If I thought I was helping kids by teaching, I could only imagine what good I'd do as a pediatrics surgeon, where I could literally save the lives of innocent children everyday.

My mind fell from the clouds, rather hard I must admit, when a man in uniform approached my parents. In his gloved hands was an American flag, folded thirteen times into a triangle. My father accepted it, dropping his arm from around my mother to shake the soldier's hand. My mother simply cried. She pulled my father's farm so that she could hold the flag close to her heart.

That was all we got: a flag. We exchanged my brave, loving brother's life for a tightly folded American flag.

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**_When the hour is upon us  
And our beauty surely gone  
No you will not be forgotten  
No you will not be alone_**

**I had trouble choosing what lyrics to put, but I decided on those because those are the ones I used for my essay. **

**Please, please review this and tell me what you think of it. Notihng makes me happier than checking my e-mails and seeing a bunch of "Review Alerts". **


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